A small office, four storeys up a marble staircase with an flowery ironwork bannister. Dark. Quiet. A light passes the window, shifting the shadows. There, in the darkness behind the desk, a face. An open mouth. Staring eyes. John's heart hammers in his chest so loudly. Can he here it? Can Adam see him? And the girl. The poor girl. Blood pools beneath the desk. And for what? A painting? Art from an artist centuries past. A dead work for dead people. His hand tightens on the suitcashandle. The Pelican. Is it worth this?
It confused them, the gnarled branch lying across rows of newly planted wheat. The tree had been healthy and the weather clear. A bob of bushy fur worked its way along the length of the fallen wood as a squirrel investigated the carnage.
Years from now, when the children had scaled the sheer rock face near their home, they'd think back to this day.
"And now where shall we climb?" the boy asked.
"There," the girl replied, a mountain peak under her finge
I was studying in science class when he came up to me. He slowly sat down next to me and asked me for help with a few questions from the textbook. "I need to hear someone explain it to me." He was begging now, but I knew that he understood the material. "You tell me. You know the answers, now teach them to me." I was trying to get him to put his thoughts into words and sort them out in a way that he could remember. And then he looked at me with his soft eyes and said, "But...
Jesus, this guy. I only wanted a ride to the temp agency, and he was all, "sure, I got a sweet set of wheels in the parking lot." So after I finish up my application for the Donut Hut -- fucking powdered sugar in my hair, I'm not taking this hat off all day now -- we go out to the lot, and it's like, it's his GRANDPA's car right there, a Packard or some shit. The seats are made of red leather and they squeak like I've farted when I get in, and there's cigarette burns on the edge...
My kids are always begging me to go to Disneyland. I suppose I'm not alone in this. The thing that kills me is how well they argue their position. It's like I'm raising a pack of lawyers in my home. That's maybe the worst part of the whole thing - imagining that I'm incubating the next generation of shysters simply by encouraging my kids to back up the claims they make.
That's why I continue to refuse to take them to Disneyland even though they've mustered some really good arguments in their favor. I don't want them to think that...
"there was blood on my pillow and a noose in my heart"
These country singers were getting downright moros, good though. I flipped the dial on the radio looking for a talk station, always helped to find a little of the local flavor, keep me grounded or at the very least feeling like I was grounded. I was play acting at this and many other lives and I knew it but kept it up.
The telephone poles ticked away - wooshing peripiphialy.
The great desert southwest of my heart was blooming with the rare cactus flower of love.
In a...
In the Kiliswa village, status depended upon how many bricks you could carry at once. If you put down any of your bricks, even for a second, you would immediately be pounced upon by your rivals.
It was a harsh life. It wore at you, carrying gigantic piles of bricks everywhere you went, day and night. Only the strongest survived; the rest perished.
Among the strongest were Ja and Na, twin brothers whose parents had died from carrying too many bricks at once (a twin pregnancy was especially hard, for the mother must carry her additional weight AND her bricks...
While Bach and Bethoven echoed in my ears, I slowly, stared at the monarch butterflies soaring in the fresh, thin air that surrounded me. I bit my lip, and then grabbed at them, but an unsuccessful attempt. I laughed and laughed. I doubled over, when I saw a man in a kyak capsize, and fall deep into the depths of the water. It felt calm and natural, sitting here, looking at the trees, the water and the sunset. A white butterfly, out lined with black-blue colors, flew in, beautifully flapping it's wings, and landed on my shoulder. I glanced at...
"Wait, so he hit you?"
She hadn't meant to let it slip. She'd done so well hiding the cause behind the bruise on her cheekbone for the past few hours, passing it off as nothing. She couldn't even remember what she'd said that had revealed the truth... something about getting into a fight over something stupid. Shannon had put two and two together and, well, there was no denying it now.
Lacey waved a hand through the air, discarding it as if it was nothing. "He didn't mean to," she sighed, turning to the mirror to examine the extent of...
she couldn't do it. her moist, clammy hands clung to the wooden pole with vicious might as she drew in intermittent, ragged breaths. the sweat dripped restlessly down her breast, sticking her shirt to her chest like a vulgar plastic case. her hands tightened around the weapon, her fingers wrapping around the cylindrical end as she struggled to raise it above her petite body. this was it. it had to be done. she clenched her eyes shut, sucked in a breath of dusty air and swung